Pakistan volleyball game attack: Will local opposition to Taliban hold firm?

"in what appears to be another retaliatory strike for recent Army offensives against the Taliban."


Everything is a retalitory strike when it comes to Terrorism .
The problem is that the Taliban always strikes at innocent people who do not Think like them !

....the Christian Science Monitor
Lahore, Pakistan

The death toll from a massive suicide attack at a volleyball tournament in northwest Pakistan mounted to 95 on Saturday, in what appears to be another retaliatory strike for recent Army offensives against the Taliban.

More than 600 civilians have now lost their lives to such attacks since the Pakistan Army began a military offensive in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan in October. Friday night’s attack was the second deadliest of these, after a market bombing in Peshawar in October that killed 130.

According to police, the main target of the New Year's Day attack in the town of Lakki Marwat was probably a local anti-Taliban militia, as militants seek to underscore their ongoing potency and counter government claims that they are on the defensive.

But despite the setback, local opposition to the Taliban is likely to remain firm, according to Abdul Basit, a security analyst at the Islamabad based Pakistani Institute for Peace Studies.

“The dynamics currently are that people have understood the fact that Taliban militants have broken the social ethos of Pashtun society,” he says, adding, “I don’t believe it will dampen their resolve.”